Movie review: Hacksaw Ridge’ shows the hell of war and the triumph of the spirit

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Nov 5, 2016 at 4:52 PMNov 5, 2016 at 4:55 PM

Ed SymkusMore Content Now

There’s not much middle ground when it comes to war movies. People either flock to them or avoid them. My guess is that when word gets out concerning this one, there will be many more in that first group. Mel Gibson’s “Hacksaw Ridge” is not only a war movie masterpiece, it’s also a great film, one that’s going to end up on many 2016 Top-10 lists, that should get Oscar nominations for Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Picture.It’s clear, in the first moments, that Gibson is not going to hold back when it comes to the horrors of war. The opening scene is set in a WWII battlefield, with men being shot and blown to pieces in close-up and slow motion. That terrible chaos will still be in the minds of viewers when the film mercifully flashes back to 16 years earlier, and the peace and quiet of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.Young brothers Desmond and Hal are best of pals, but not all is well with their family. Dad (Hugo Weaving) is an emotionally damaged man, driven to drink by what he went through in WWI. Mom (Rachel Griffiths) tries to hold things together by never straying from the word of the Bible.Fifteen years later, the boys are all grown up. A sweet and very funny love-at-first-sight scene in a hospital sets up a future romance between Desmond (Andrew Garfield) and Nurse Dorothy Schutte (Teresa Palmer). He’s awkward, while she’s sure of herself. She falls for his charm, and he’s completely smitten by her ... and tells her so. These two have got to have the best smiles onscreen today.But WWII is being waged, and it gets in the way. Older brother Hal enlists, without the blessing of angry Dad, and Desmond starts reading medical books, soon telling Dorothy that he, too, will enlist, but as a medic, with the idea of saving lives, not taking them.Gibson changes the tenor of the film with a jump to training at Fort Jackson, where Desmond gets a rowdy welcome as he’s introduced around the army barracks – and viewers meet the new recruits around him. Many moviegoers will also start making comparisons with “Full Metal Jacket” as soon as they see and hear the behavior of the Sergeant Howell (Vince Vaughn), who is reminiscent of but far less malicious than R. Lee Ermey in “Full Metal Jacket.”It’s also at this point that a major revelation is made, seemingly due to Des’ religious upbringing (though the script later adds more dimension to it), that he is a conscientious objector, and has joined the army with the resolve never to touch a gun. This doesn’t go well with his superiors, or with his fellow soldiers, and there is physical retribution. But Des is a man of principals, who can neither be broken nor convinced to quit the military.A jump forward brings the film to Okinawa Island in May, 1945, the place and time of some of the war’s most deadly fighting. As Gibson keeps his cameras moving right alongside the new recruits, they’re told, in no uncertain terms, by soldiers already there, exactly what they’re in for. And then those cameras show those hellish horrors. When the battle scenes begin, they’re vicious and unrelenting. The violence is gut-wrenching, yet not a frame of it comes across as gratuitous. Gibson has gone the route of showing the realism of war.A thrilling, breathtaking, and lengthy battle sequence is followed by the welcome calm of a nighttime foxhole conversation between two exhausted soldiers. But morning sees another furious Japanese attack that brings to mind the giant bugs swarming over craggy terrain in “Starship Troopers.”It’s during these scenes that Gibson and writers Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkkan instill the film with the goodness of mankind and the spirituality and heroism that can be found in the most dire of situations. You may not have heard the story of Corporal Desmond Doss, but this film will fill you with inspiration for the man. It will also prove that Gibson is a great filmmaker, and get many folks to agree that this is his best one.